US, SIGN THE TEATY AGAINST CLUSTER BOMBS; do not ship more to the Saudi

This morning I sat on my back porch watching the sky turn from grey to palest blue.

Cool zephyrs ruffled the plant papaya leaves; all was quiet save for cooing of doves and the occasional hum of a plane high over-head.

I am not frightened by the hum of planes; the carry destruction for me, my spouse, my children, their children, my friends, my town.

It may be that another old man, in beautiful Yemen, also sat outside, watching the same sun light the mountains in Western Yemen.  It may be he also hears the hum of planes, and is sore afraid.

Planes overhead in Yemen carry death and destruction from Saudi Arabia -- next door -- and bombs from America, unimaginably far away.

This imagined old man doesn't know any Saud, has never harmed a Saud, once wished no harm on any Saud or American.  Before the Bombs came he wished only to be left alone.

Now he sits on the ground instead of on his back porch; there is only a whole where his porch, and wife, and children used to be.

The Saud King, His Son, and His Nephew, do not presently fear bombs.

The prince of counterterrorism: The story of Washington's favorite Saudi, Muhammad bin Nayef | Brookings Institution

They should.

Their indiscriminate funding of Salafi Jihadist warriors in Syria; their decades of funding madrases in Pakistan and Afghanistan; their funding of 9/11;

has attracted Ananke, 

Goddess of Fate and Necessity.

They tremble in fear of the the Islamic State, their own creation, which lusts to control Mecca and thus confirm its claim to be the Caliphate long predicted to rule Arabs; 

They tremble in fear of the Houthi, with whom they lived in peace until the bombs started dropping;

They tremble before their own people and the coming exhaustion of oil reserves, when the subsidies will stop;

They fear the US is a friend only so long as oil is needed (and well they should)

Meanwhile, my imagined old man is hungry, has been hungry for a long while, will be hungry for a long while longer, until he is no more.

Lost in the Stars, Kurt Weill

But I've been walking through the night, and the day

Till my eyes get weary and my head turns grey

And sometimes it seems maybe God's gone away

Forgetting the promise that we've heard him say

And we're lost out here in the stars.

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

two BLU-108 canisters, one with two skeet (submunitions) still attached, found in the al-Amar area of al-Safraa in Saada governorate, northern Yemen after an attack on April 27.
© 2015 Ole Solvang/Human Rights Watch

Yemen: Cluster Munitions Wounding Civilians

US Supplied Weapon Banned by 2008 Treaty

(Beirut) – The Saudi Arabia-led coalition is using internationally banned cluster munitions supplied by the United States in Yemen despite evidence of civilian casualties, Human Rights Watch said today. Recently transferred US-manufactured cluster munitions are being used in civilian areas contrary to US export requirements and also appear to be failing to meet the reliability standard required for US export of the weapons.

“Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, as well as their US supplier, are blatantly disregarding the global standard that says cluster munitions should never be used under any circumstances,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the international Cluster Munition Coalition. “The Saudi-led coalition should investigate evidence that civilians are being harmed in these attacks and immediately stop using them.”

Since March 26, 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of nations has been conducting a military operation in Yemen against Houthi forces, also known as Ansar Allah. Field research by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations; interviews with witnesses and victims; and photographs and video evidence confirm that the Saudi-led coalition is using cluster munitions in Yemen.

Cluster munitions are delivered from the ground by artillery and rockets, or dropped from aircraft and contain multiple smaller submunitions that spread out over a wide area. A total of 118 countries have banned cluster munitions due to the threat they pose to nearby civilians at the time of attack and afterward. The submunitions often fail to explode and pose a threat until cleared and destroyed. Yemen, the US, and Saudi Arabia and its coalition members should join the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, Human Rights Watch said.

A BLU-108 canister with four skeet (submunitions) still attached found in the al-Amar areas of al-Safraa, Saada governorate, in northern Yemen after an attack on April 27.

© 2015 Private

Human Rights Watch believes the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of states operating in Yemen is responsible for all or nearly all of these cluster munition attacks because it is the only entity operating aircraft or multibarrel rocket launchers capable of delivering five of the six types of cluster munitions that have been used in the conflict.

One type of air-dropped cluster munition used by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, manufactured by Textron Systems Corporation of Wilmington, Massachuetts. Human Rights Watch has investigated at least five attacks involving the use of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons in four governorates since March 2015.

Most recently, CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used in a December 12, 2015 attack on the Yemeni port town of Hodaida, injuring a woman and two children in their homes. At least two civilians were wounded when CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used near al-Amar village in Saada governorate on April 27, 2015, according to local residents and medical staff. More information on these and other cluster munition attacks is provided below.

While any use of any type of cluster munition should be condemned, there are two additional disturbing aspects to the use of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons in Yemen. First, US export law prohibits recipients of cluster munitions from using them in populated areas, as the Saudi coalition has clearly been doing. Second, US export law only allows the transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of less than 1 percent. But it appears that Sensor Fuzed Weapons used in Yemen are not functioning in ways that meet that reliability standard.

In recent years, the US has supplied these weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both of which possess attack aircraft of US and Western/NATO origin capable of delivering them. CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons are the only cluster munitions currently exported by the US, and the recipient must agree not to use them in civilian areas. According to the US government, CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons are the only cluster munition in its active inventory “that meet[s] our stringent requirements for unexploded ordnance rates,” with a claimed failure rate of less than 1 percent.

Distinctive fragmentation pattern on the road outside al-Amar in Saada governorate, northern Yemen, where BLU-108 canisters from a CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon attack on April 27 were found. 

© 2015 Ole Solvang/Human Rights Watch  

Human Rights Watch chairs the Cluster Munition Coalition U.S., which in a March 30, 2015 letter urged President Barack Obama to review the 2008 cluster munitions policy, and to remove the exception allowing cluster munitions that result in less than 1 percent unexploded ordnance rate.

According to a Textron Systems Corporation datasheet, the CBU-105 disperses 10 BLU-108 canisters that each release four submunitions the manufacturer calls “skeet” that are designed to sense, classify, and engage a target such as an armored vehicle. The submunitions explode above the ground and project an explosively formed jet of metal and fragmentation downward. The skeet are equipped with electronic self-destruct and self-deactivation features.

However, photographs taken by Human Rights Watch field investigators at one location and photographs received from another location show BLU-108 from separate attacks with their “skeets” or submunitions still attached. This shows a failure to function as intended as the submunitions failed to disperse from the canister, or were dispersed but did not explode.

“Sensor Fuzed Weapons are touted by some as the most high tech, reliable cluster munitions in the world, but we have evidence that they are not working the way they are supposed to in Yemen, and have harmed civilians in at least two attacks,” Goose said. “The evidence raises serious questions about compliance with US cluster munition policy and export rules.”

Evidence of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons Attacks in Yemen since March 2015

Al-Hayma Port, Hodaida governorate, December 12, 2015

The coalition has carried out intermittent air attacks on the military port of al-Hayma, 100 kilometers south of the western coastal city of Hodaida, beginning in September, four residents of the fishing village of al-Hayma, 1.5 kilometers from the port, told Human Rights Watch in late January 2016. Ammar Ismail, 22, said that the Yemeni coast guard and Houthi forces both occupy parts of the port, but local fisherman and gasoline smugglers are still using it as well.

Air strikes began at about 9 a.m. on December 12, said Muhammad Ahmad, 33, but about an hour later, he saw a different kind of weapon than used previously:

'I was with six friends from the village … sitting on a small hill watching the strikes. We suddenly saw about 20 white parachutes in the air, falling toward the port. Less than a minute later, each one released a cloud of black smoke as it neared the ground and exploded. It looked like a series of multiple bombs all next to each other. Less than 5 minutes later, it happened again, another bomb let out a group of about 20 parachutes and the same thing happened. But because of the direction the wind was blowing, the parachutes suddenly started falling toward our village.'

Hussein Saed, 42, said he watched four parachutes fall toward the village and “as each parachute came close to the ground, it would explode like fireworks, and release bombs.”

A FZU-39/B proximity sensor from CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon used in the attack on al-Hayma Port in Hodaida governorate on December 12, 2015© 2015 Private 

He said that one munition hit the wall of his brother Ali Saed’s home, breaking a window just below. Metal fragments flew into the room, wounding Ali Saed’s wife, Aziza Ahmad Ahdab, 42, and their daughter Salama, 4. Doctors had to amputate Ahdab’s lower right leg. Saed said that another munition landed in the yard of his other brother, Hassan Saed, and exploded next to the bathroom, but that no one was wounded.

A doctor at a local health clinic said that he treated Homadi Hassan Muliked, 15, who was wounded in his abdomen by another munition in the same attack. Muliked said that he quickly lay down on the floor in his house when he heard the explosions, but “suddenly I felt a pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. I looked down and saw blood. I didn’t know what happened or how, but later I saw the damage to our house. One of the bombs had hit our wall and exploded.”

One munition hit the home of Muhammad Zeid Ahmad, 50:

"Something hit the wall and broke through it. I immediately hit the floor. This strange object landed about five meters  from me. It looked like a small silver model of a rocket. I was very afraid, I tried to crawl away and escape because I knew it could explode at any moment. It looked very scary. But as I moved, it moved with me, not toward me, but in the same direction, in slow motion it seemed. … This went on for about a minute and then it exploded. Luckily I was not seriously wounded."

Another witness also said it seemed that a weapon followed him.  

While it is not possible for these weapons to detect human targets, the skeet, or submunitions, are released in all directions.

Remnants of a CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon (right) and a BLU-108 canister used in the attack on al-Hayma Port in Hodaida governorate on December 12, 2015.

© 2015 Private

Remnants of a CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon (right) and a BLU-108 canister used in the attack on al-Hayma Port in Hodaida governorate on December 12, 2015.

Amran governorate, June 29, 2015

According to a report by Amnesty International, CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used in an attack on Harf Sofian in Amran governorate, south of Saada, that locals said occurred on June 29. Amnesty International researchers visiting the area on July 6 found and photographed the remnants of an empty BLU-108 canister.

Sanhan, Sanaa governorate, May 21, 2015

Human Rights Watch received photographs and collected witness accounts that indicate CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used in an attack on the Affash Historic Fort in Sanhan, Sanaa governorate, about 20 kilometers south of Sanaa City, on May 21.

The fort is in the village of Bait al-Ahmar, which has approximately 460 inhabitants, where former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key supporter of the Houthis in the current conflict, owns a house. A guard at the fort, Nagi Abdullah al-Gahshi, said that the closest military base is 20 to 25 kilometers away, at Raymet Humaid military camp.

Ali Mohsen Maqula, a guard for the past four years at the Affash Historic Fort’s housing compound and member of the Republican Guard, told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed a cluster munition attack. Yemen’s Republican Guard is a military unit that was commanded by former President Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Saleh.

Maqula said he was on a hill a kilometer from the fort at about 7 p.m. on May 21, when he saw a series of about 12 explosions. “I remember the explosions in the sky, they looked like big bright red fireworks, the color of lava,” he said. It was too dark to see anything else, he said. He said that 10 guards at the compound were wounded in the attack, but that Saleh was not there at the time.

A BLU-108 canister with all four skeet (submunitions) still attached, reportedly used in an attack on the Affash Historic Fort in Sanhan, Sanaa governorate, on May 21.

© 2015 Private

Maqula left but returned to the village a week later and saw the remnants in the compound of BLU-108 canisters with their parachutes still attached, as well as at least 20 unexploded skeet, or submunitions. Two weeks later, a team of military engineers arrived and destroyed the submunitions near the gate of the compound by detonating them, but did not touch the rest, he said.

In September 2015, Abdullah Abu Hurriya, a politician from former President Saleh’s General People’s Congress Party, hired Muhammad Ahmad al-Nahmi, a freelance photographer, to photograph the submunitions. Al-Nahmi told Human Rights Watch that he traveled to the village and saw at least eight BLU-108 canisters in the fort, and another three next to the compound’s mosque. Abu Hurriya provided copies of the photos to Human Rights Watch that show the remnants of a CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, including a BLU-108 canister with all four skeets or submunitions still attached, indicated it failed to function.

Maqula said that the local sheikh of the village, Muhammad Mohsen, warned residents to leave on May 19 after three bombs – not cluster munitions – hit the compound at around 11:30 a.m., wounding al-Gahshi and three other guards. Maqula said that those who lived closest to the compound walls left, but about 200 residents living 500 meters or further from the compound stayed. He said that after the May 21 attack, the remaining civilians fled. Since then, there have been four more attacks on the compound – one in September and three in October – but none with cluster munitions.

Al-Amar, Saada governorate, April 27, 2015

A Sanaa-based activist provided Human Rights Watch with photographs that he said were taken by a resident of Saada governorate at the site of an April 27 airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in the al-Amar area of al-Safraa, 35 kilometers south of the northern Houthi stronghold of Saada city. The photographs show a BLU-108 canister with four skeet, or submunitions, still attached, indicating it failed to function, and another empty BLU-108.

An FZU-39/B proximity sensor, which opens CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon in mid-air, reportedly used in an attack on the Affash Historic Fort in Sanhan, Sanaa governorate, on May 21. 

© 2015 Private

Local residents and medical staff said the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons used outside al-Amar village on April 27, wounded two or three people. One witness said that one of the wounded was a fighter while others, including medical staff in two hospitals, said that at least two were civilians.

In May, locals showed Human Rights Watch the remnants of two BLU-108 canisters and the place where they were found by near the main road between Sanaa and Saada, about 100 meters south of al-Amar. One canister still contained a submunition, while the other was empty. Human Rights Watch found a third empty canister in bushes nearby. Researchers identified six small craters in the asphalt at the attack site that are consistent with craters created by the explosive submunitions released from BLU-108 canisters.

Ayid Muhammad Haydar, 37, a resident, said that he heard an airplane overhead around 11 a.m. on a Monday, the weekly village market day, in late April. He said that the sky filled with about 40 parachutes. He did not hear any explosions in the air, but said that he heard about 15 small explosions that sounded like hand grenades over the next two hours.

Local residents said that Saudi-led coalition aircraft had carried out dozens of aerial attacks on April 27, apparently targeting the al-Safra military complex, housing the 72nd Military Brigade, two to three kilometers away, which Al-Amar residents described as the closest military installation to their village.

An expended BLU-108 canister from a CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon found in the al-Amar area of al-Safraa, Saada governorate, in northern Yemen on April 27. 

© 2015 Ole Solvang/Human Rights Watch

Al-Shaaf, Saada governorate, April 17, 2015

A video uploaded to YouTube on April 17 by the pro-Houthi September 21 YouTube channel shows numerous objects with parachutes slowly descending from the sky. The video zooms out to show a mid-air detonation and several black smoke clouds from other detonations. Human Rights Watch established the location, using satellite imagery analysis, as al-Shaaf in Saqeen, in the western part of Saada governorate. The munitions appeared to land on a cultivated plateau, within 600 meters of several dozen buildings in four to six village clusters.

US Transfer of the Weapons

The US Department of Defense concluded a contract with Textron Defense Systems for the manufacture of 1,300 CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons for Saudi Arabia in August 2013. The contract stipulated that the weapons were to be delivered by December 2015, but Human Rights Watch has not been able to determine if all cluster munitions have been delivered. The UAE received an unknown number of CBU-105 from Textron Defense Systems in June 2010, fulfilling a contract announced in November 2007. At the time that these two nations procured these weapons, each CBU-105 cost approximately $360,000.

Under a June 2008 policy directive issued by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the US can only export cluster munitions that “after arming do not result in more than 1 percent unexploded ordnance across the range of intended operational environments,” and the receiving country must agree that cluster munitions “will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.”

This policy is most recently codified in Section 7054 (b) of the Consolidated and Continuing Appropriations Act (H.R. 83) of 2015. According to guidance issued by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in 2011, “the only cluster munition with a compliant submunition compliant with the reliability standard established by the Gates Policy is the CBU-97B/CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon.”

There is no evidence to indicate that CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons have been transferred to or stockpiled by the other countries participating in the Saudi-led coalition – Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, and Sudan.

Parachute from a BLU-108 canister used in the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon attack on al-Hayma Port in Hodaida governorate on December 12, 2015.

© 2015 Private

Saudi Arabia has denied using other types of cluster munitions in Yemen, but it has admitted to using CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons. In a January 11, 2016 interview with CNN, the Saudi military spokesperson said the coalition used CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons once, in Hajjah in April 2015, “but not indiscriminately.” He said that the CBU-105 has been used “against vehicles.”

The Saudi-led coalition may have used CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons in Hajjah in an attack on a vehicle on a mountain road between Amran and Hajjah city. In August 2015, several locals in the area told Human Rights Watch researchers that they had heard about a military truck with a family inside being hit by cluster munitions sometime between May and July. A local news outlet reported an incident meeting the same description on May 21.

While the CBU-105 is banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, its use is permitted under existing US policy and its export is permitted under the existing US export restrictions on cluster munitions.

The US has made few public statements in response to the use of cluster munitions in Yemen. According to State Department officials, the US is aware of “reports” of the “alleged” use of cluster munitions by the Saudi-led coalition. In an August 19 article, however, an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted as acknowledging that “the U.S. is aware that Saudi Arabia has used cluster munitions in Yemen.”

In July, US Representative Jim McGovern raised concern about the use of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons in Yemen, stating: “If we have evidence that countries are not complying with US law that ought to be enough to say we sell these weapons to them no more. Period. End of story.” McGovern said the US should join the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Fishing boats burn in al-Hayma Port in Hodaida governorate after the December 12 attack in which CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons were used.

© 2015 Private 

Before the Yemen conflict, the only known use of the Sensor Fuzed Weapon was by the US in Iraq in 2003, apparently on a very limited scale, but multiple failures called into question the claimed reliability rate of better than 99 pecent.

In addition to the recent transfer of CBU-105, the US provided Saudi Arabia with significant exports of cluster bombs between 1970 and 1999. There is credible evidence that in November 2009, Saudi Arabia dropped cluster bombs in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate during fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni and Saudi militaries.

Cry the Beloved Country

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Started by Ahmad.G, 18 Jul 2010

SHI'A, MUSLIM, CANAA

Author unknown

Cry for my non-existent childhood

Cry for my stolen youth

Cry for my uprooted olive trees

Cry for my village which lost its name

Cry for the maimed children

Cry for the widowed mothers

And cry for the raped land.

A land I tended with my tears

Yes, cry, as I am crying

For non-caring kin

Yes, cry as I am crying

For non-caring humanity

Cry because I stopped crying

I have no more tears to spare

I need them for my children’s graves

My children have gone to war

They will not come back alive

They think their blood will bring back the olive trees

They think that their blood will wipe out the infamy

Of kin who did not raise a finger

Of humanity which did not utter a word

To protect my olive trees 

Turkey, Kurds, Ferguson, and the West's Conundrum

A House Foreign Affairs Committee bill would provide giving Iraqi Kurdistan, directly, anti-tank and anti-armor weapons, armored vehicles, long-range artillery, crew-served weapons and ammunition, secure command and communications equipment, body armor, helmets, logistics equipment, excess defense articles and other military assistance that the President determines to be appropriate.   In fact, whatever Turkey's Kurds need to establish an autonomous Kurdistan in Turkey.

A Senate bill co-sponsored by  some Democrats and by Republican presidential candidates Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.). Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) provides for directly arming to the Kurds, rather than arming them through Bagdad.


President Obama objects.  The stated basis of  the objection is that arming Kurds directly would further weaken the Shiite-controlled national Iraqi government in Bagdad.

An unstated but more compelling objection is that it would trouble a NATO partner, Turkey.  For background, see

Part 2: Opportunities and dangers in West Asia 

Kurds and Turkey are at war.

Turkey has good reason to fear arming Kurds.  Kurds are the best fighters around, and Turkey treated its Kurds abominably until it decided it wanted to join the European Union, which ha high standards of treating its peoples.  Now that desire is fading and Turkey is looking eastward, to the Turkic Union, and is again treating Kueds badly.


From the West's point of view, Kurds are the best fighters around against the Islamic State; [IS] and Kurds were the best allies the West had in the Bushco's Iraq War.  The West has good reason to arm the Kurds.

How to support the Kurds and Turkey and end IS at the same time?  Certainly not with bluster,as the Republicans propose, but cautiously, deliberately, and with careful diplomacy.  That approach doesn't make good sound bites; it does make good sense.

Here is some useful information about unrest in Turkey, more organized than in any other Western country, for now.  (Turkey is Western, though Islamic -- for now.)

December 15, 2015

Demonstrators remove security barriers during a protest against the curfew in the Sur district of the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, Dec. 14, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Sertac Kayar)

 Ocalan silent as Kurds' fight for self-rule rages on

The cobbled alleys of Diyarbakir’s ancient Sur district are filled with shell casings and shattered glass. Black-masked teenagers touting Kalashnikovs and hand grenades mill around sandbag fortifications.

“We will defend our neighborhood till the last drop of our blood, till the revolution in Kurdistan is complete,” one of the youths told an Al-Monitor correspondent in Sur. That was on Dec. 11, when the Turkish authorities briefly eased a curfew that was slapped on six neighborhoods in Sur almost two weeks ago, allowing trapped residents to flee with the few possessions they managed to grab. “We are caught in the war. What else can we do? All we pray for now is peace,” said Remziye Kaya, a mother of six, as she hurried away with a small electrical stove.

Peace seems an increasingly elusive goal ever since a two-year cease-fire between Turkey’s Islamist government and rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) collapsed in the wake of a deadly suicide bomb attack carried out by the Islamic State (IS) in the town of Suruc. Some 33 peace activists, many of them Kurds, were killed.

The PKK has long claimed that Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has used IS to sabotage the Syrian Kurds’ experiment with self-rule in the steadily expanding band of territory they control along the Turkish border they call Rojava.

Conspiracy theories abound as to who reignited the 31-year conflict — the government or the PKK — and why. At this point it hardly matters; the war is swiftly escalating, and the Kurds have raised the stakes like never before.

In a clutch of towns and cities across Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, armed youngsters loyal to Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, and calling themselves the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), have seized control of entire streets and neighborhoods, erecting barriers and declaring autonomy. The spirit of rebellion has permeated Sur, where pro-PKK slogans and posters of the mustachioed Ocalan cover bullet-riddled walls. Several young fighters interviewed by Al-Monitor all said that they would end their revolt only if ordered to do so by Ocalan. But since April 6, the Turkish authorities have not allowed any of his regular visitors, including the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers who used to carry messages from him, to meet with Ocalan in his island prison.

The resulting vacuum has been filled by Cemil Bayik, the hard-line PKK commander who says he supports the YDG-H’s moves.

“This is a first, and the unrest could spread to the rest of the country,” warned Ahmet Sumbul, the managing editor of Mucadele, an independent local daily. “Don’t forget there are 5 million Kurds in Istanbul alone and most are young, unemployed and alienated, too,” he told Al-Monitor. Many are the children of the 1.5 million or so Kurds who were forced to flee their villages in the 1990s as a result of the scorched-earth campaign against the Kurds.

Martin van Bruinessen, a respected Dutch scholar and the author of several groundbreaking books on the Kurds, noted in an interview with Al-Monitor, “A few years ago, they were throwing stones at the police; now, a few years older, they carry firearms.” Local sources told Al-Monitor that these weapons are mostly being funneled by the PKK. The YDG-H “don't seem to be particularly afraid of being killed. The current level of state violence is likely to radicalize them even further. Unless the state is willing to kill large numbers of them, this is a war the state cannot win. And it will not be easy to stop the escalation,” van Bruinessen added.

While few believe that the YDG-H can hold the areas under its control indefinitely, its actions are piling pressure on the AKP, which became the first Turkish government to openly negotiate with the PKK and Ocalan. But the government’s refusal to grant the Kurds' demands for political autonomy enshrined in a brand-new constitution lies at the heart of the current deadlock.

Arzu Yilmaz, an Ankara-based academic who studies the Kurds, told Al-Monitor, “The Kurds want to be formally acknowledged as self-governing equal partners and for this new arrangement to be constitutionally guaranteed.”

Her views are widely echoed by PKK commanders and the HDP alike. Hishyar Ozsoy, an HDP lawmaker from Bingol, whose great grandfather, the legendary Sheikh Said, led one of the earliest Kurdish rebellions in 1925, said in an interview with Al-Monitor, “This is not about human rights. This is about collective rights, and nothing short of self-rule will satisfy the Kurds.”

“But the government is stuffing its ears,” he added.

To be sure, the government is growing more hawkish by the day. Round-the-clock curfews are being repeatedly imposed over traditionally restive towns like Silvan, Nusaybin and Cizre.

Some 22 mayors from the pro-Kurdish HDP have been locked up on thinly supported terrorism charges. “Special” police and military teams backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers have laid siege to the “liberated” zones and engaged in bloody street battles in a bid to flush and starve the youths out. They seem to be switching tactics.

“When the state temporarily lifts the curfews, it’s so that civilians can leave,” explained Gultan Kisanak, the fiery co-mayor of Diyarbakir in an interview with Al-Monitor. “The immediate purpose is to have a free hand to crush the youths. The larger goal is to scatter the Kurds, just as they did in the ’90s.”

Her reasoning may well be true and is repeated in public by fellow HDP officials. This in turn places huge moral pressure on ordinary Kurds caught in the crossfire to risk their lives and stay.

“The breakdown of the peace process and willingness of the Turkish government and PKK to bring war to the cities is taking a terrible toll on the Kurdish population,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Credible allegations of police ill-treatment are on the rise. The enormous hardships people face under curfews with armed clashes raging — no water, no electricity, no food, no schooling, no medical treatment — mean that people are being driven out of the affected neighborhoods,” she noted in an email exchange with Al-Monitor.

Figures vary, but at least 150 people are said to have died since the violence flared in June. Muharrem Erbey, a respected human rights lawyer and member of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party, an HDP affiliate, believes that the security forces are responsible for most of the deaths. Reports of torture under police detention are also on the rise. “One of my clients had a truncheon repeatedly jammed up against his anus in a police van. He can barely walk,” Erbey told Al-Monitor in an interview.

The government may be calculating that the endless self-sacrifice being demanded of ordinary Kurds will turn them against the PKK. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared that the security forces would go “door to door” to root the “terrorists” out.

In Sur alone, thousands of businesses have been shut down. “Sur is the commercial heart not only of Diyarbakir but of the entire southeast,” said Shah Ismail Bedirhanoglu, who presides over the Southeastern Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association. He told Al-Monitor, “We are ruined, but it is poor people who are paying the highest price.”

Some HDP officials agree that popular anger is rising. “If there were an election today, the HDP would not make it into the parliament,” Imam Tascier, an HDP lawmaker from Diyarbakir, told Al-Monitor. Yet Tascier insists that the government is to blame for the current impasse, and like the youths in Sur, he believes Ocalan needs to be brought out of his isolation. Bedirhanoglu agrees.

“Ocalan’s silence is sowing confusion in the minds of the HDP and the PKK,” he said. “Above all, the Turkish state has to recognize the Kurds' demands for self-rule. The alternative, Allah forbid, is an all-out civil war,” Bedirhanoglu concluded.

Amberin Zaman

Columnist 

Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television, she is currently Turkey correspondent for The Economist, a position she has retained since 1999. She is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse. On Twitter: @amberinzaman

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Abdullah Öcalan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Abandoning his precapture policy, which involved violence targeting civilians as well as military personnel, Öcalan has advocated a relatively peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict inside the borders of Turkey.[55][56][57][58][59] Öcalan called for the foundation of a "Truth and Justice Commission" by Kurdish institutions in order to investigate war crimes committed by the PKK and Turkish security forces; a parallel structure began functioning in May 2006.[60] In March 2005, Abdullah Öcalan issued the Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan[61] calling for a border-free confederation between the Kurdish regions of Eastern Turkey (called "Northern Kurdistan" by Kurds[62]), East Syria ("Western Kurdistan"), Northern Iraq ("South Kurdistan"), and West of Iran ("East Kurdistan"). In this zone, three bodies of law would be implemented: EU law, Turkish/Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian law and Kurdish law. This perspective was included in the PKK programme following the "Refoundation Congress" in April 2005.[63]

Since his incarceration, Öcalan has significantly changed his ideology, reading Western social theorists such as Murray Bookchin, Immanuel Wallerstein, Fernand Braudel,[64] fashioned his ideal society as "Democratic Confederalism" (drawing heavily on Bookchin's Communalism),[65] [see Part 2, Opportunities and Dangers in Wet Asia, supra] and refers to Friedrich Nietzsche as "a prophet".[66] He also wrote books[67] and articles[68] on the history of pre-capitalist Mesopotamia and Abrahamic religions.

Öcalan had his lawyer, Ibrahim Bilmez,[69] release a statement 28 September 2006, calling on the PKK to declare a ceasefire and seek peace with Turkey. Öcalan's statement said, "The PKK should not use weapons unless it is attacked with the aim of annihilation," and that it is "very important to build a democratic union between Turks and Kurds. With this process, the way to democratic dialogue will be also opened".[70] He made another such declaration in March 2013.

On 31 May 2010, however, Öcalan said he was abandoning an ongoing dialogue between him and Turkey saying that "this process is no longer meaningful or useful". Turkey ignored his three protocols for negotiation that included (a) his terms of health and security (b) his release and (c) a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Though the Turkish government received these protocols, they were never published. Öcalan stated that he would leave the top PKK commanders in charge of the conflict. However, he also said that his comments should not be misinterpreted as a call for the PKK to intensify its armed conflict with the Turkish state.[71][72]

More recently, Öcalan has shown renewed cooperation with the Turkish government and hope for a peaceful resolution to three decades of conflict. On 21 March 2013, Öcalan declared a ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish state. Öcalan's statement was read to hundreds of thousands of Kurds gathered to celebrate the Kurdish New Year and it states, "Let guns be silenced and politics dominate... a new door is being opened from the process of armed conflict to democratization and democratic politics. It's not the end. It's the start of a new era." Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the statement and hope for a peaceful settlement has been raised on both sides.

Soon after Öcalan's declaration was read, the functional head of the PKK, Murat Karayılan responded by promising to implement the ceasefire, stating, "Everyone should know the PKK is as ready for peace as it is for war".

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Recent images of Kurdish unrest in Western Turkey:

Kurdish leader calls for 'honourable resistance' after Turkish forces kill 55 http://ow.ly/W5akZ

A picture made avaliable 18 August 2015, Members of Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) youth organization of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), guard in Silvan district, near city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, 17 August 2015. EPA/STR

After killing of Diyarbakır Bar President Tahir Elçi, curfew has been declared second time in Turkey’s southeastern Sur district of Diyarbakır province

Clashes have erupted in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province after police refused to permit a rally protesting an ongoing curfew. Two people were killed and two others were wounded in the violence

Demonstrators gesture during a protest against the curfew in Sur district in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır on Dec. 14

Walled city of Sur, Turkey

turkey-august-27th-2015-turkey-istanbul-members-of-the-patriotic-revolutionary-F160DR

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       Oh the folks will rise 

With the sleep still in their eyes

And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re’
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it’s for real
The hour when the ship comes in 

Then they’ll raise their hands
Sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands
But we’ll shout from the bow your days are numbered
And like Pharoah’s tribe
They’ll be drownded in the tide
And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered

                                        Bob Dylan, in an early incarnation, when he still trusted the people . . . .